I am home.
I am writing from my very own bed.
I am very pleased and happy to be here. It is a long journey from Cambridge in the camper van.
I am not going to write anything. I am too tired. Instead I am going to give you my story to read. We had to come up with a story on the theme of something lost, which had to be a thousand words long, and written in between classes and eating the massively satisfying college dinners.
Here is mine. Happy reading. I will write tomorrow.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess.
I am afraid she was not an especially clever princess, although this was not important because she was beautiful. Fortunately she had a well-worn-beautiful-princess career path laid out in front of her, which largely involved passing the selection process to marry a handsome prince and then graduating to become a queen.
When our story opens she was hanging about the palace gardens, aimlessly chucking a ball made of pure gold at the wall and catching it when it bounced back, which mostly it didn’t.
This, I think, provides an adequate illustration of the original point. It also indicates that as well as not being very clever, she wasn’t much of a sportswoman, and was rather inclined to show off.
Anyway, this is only a short story and we will soon run out of words if we do too much character analysis, so let us carry on.
As our story begins, Dopey the princess was occupying her intellectual capacity to its fullest by wondering vaguely why something so pleasingly shiny as the solid gold ball didn’t bounce more effectively.
No amount of scowling seemed to make any difference, and in a fit of bad temper, she hurled it over the little wall into the well.
There was a satisfying plop, and a splash.
She had just begun to stump crossly back to the palace when she remembered that her father, who had given her the ball, had told her in his best stern voice that she must Look After It And Not Lose It Because It Had Once Belonged To Granny.
She rushed back and peered over the wall into the well, in case the ball was floating on the water, again proving the justice of our original character assessment.
“Bugger,” said Dopey.
“Need a hand?” said a croaky voice by her elbow.
She glanced down.
There was a frog on the wall.
She was as charmed as girls usually are by green slimy things. If you don’t believe me, you might like to try offering to show the contents of your handkerchief to the girl next to you at the dinner table.
Princess Dopey screamed, and jumped away in revulsion.
The frog sighed.
“I can get it for you,” he offered.
Princess Dopey looked at him speculatively.
“Can you swim?” she asked.
The frog patiently acknowledged that he could.
Princess Dopey drew herself up importantly.
“I command you to fetch my ball, Slimy,” she instructed.
The frog made a wheezy noise, which was in fact an ironic chuckle, although Dopey didn’t know that. She scowled at the frog.
“I command…” she began, but the frog cut her short.
“You don’t get it,” he explained, helpfully. “It works like this. You ask nicely. You could even grovel. I quite like that. Then I promise to get your ball, but only if you promise to do something nice for me. Then I get your ball and you don’t get in trouble with your father. Then you do the nice thing. Everybody wins. What do you say?”
Dopey frowned suspiciously.
“What sort of nice thing?” she asked.
The frog sat up, and looked at her.
“You promise to let me come home with you. Then you let me share your dinner and sleep on your pillow tonight. That’s it. No big deal.”
Princess Dopey thought about it.
“It’s only mashed potatoes tonight,” she said. “Not chips or anything decent. All right. As long as you stay out of the gravy. Go and get it.”
“Say please,” said the frog.
“Please,” said Dopey, through gritted teeth, and the frog dived into the water as smoothly and soundlessly as a sword slashes through a silk veil.
When he returned with the ball you will not be surprised to hear that naughty, ungrateful Dopey grabbed it out of his long, webbed fingers and pegged it.
At the dinner table that night, the King was startled when the footman opened the door and ushered in a very disgruntled frog.
“He says Princess Dopey invited him,” he explained, in the sort of tone that people use when they want you to know that something is definitely not their fault.
Princess Dopey confessed, reluctantly, that this was indeed the case.
She glared at the frog.
“Lift me up,” he said.
“Ewww,” said Dopey, but she picked up his cold, watery-smelling little body, and put it on the table.
The frog instantly dived into her gravy. We really can’t blame him for this. Princess Dopey had left him to hop up to the palace and argue with the footman all by himself, and it is not surprising that he felt some revenge was called for.
After dinner, during which the frog hopped into her trifle as well, they proceeded to bed. I know most people don’t go straight to bed after dinner, but we don’t have enough words to waste any on descriptions of an evening spent dancing and chatting.
The frog watched Princess Dopey getting undressed with a very keen interest.
“Put me on your pillow,” he said.
The princess looked mutinous.
“You promised,” he added, smirking.
Dopey reached down, but she did not pick up the frog.
She picked up the golden ball.
Then she dropped it on the frog’s head. She bashed it down a couple of times, just to make sure.
The frog was squished flat, in a nasty mess of frog-blood and slime.
The princess wiped up the remains of the frog with an extra-thick tissue, because it was a palace and no domestic expense had been spared. She dropped it down the lavatory and went to bed.
After that she lived happily ever after.
FOOTNOTE:
We learned in class that short stories should incorporate a moral. I have had to think hard about this but have finally come up with one, and so here it is.
Be very careful of naked princesses with golden balls.
I hope that turns out to be a valuable life-lesson.
